JEREMY JONES, HOST: Well, despite the axing of multiple projects in Gladstone, there's still hope for future green metals manufacturing in the city. Minister Tim Ayres was in Gladstone yesterday for the opening and consultation for the $2 billion Green Aluminum Production Credit program. And the Minister is with us now. 
Thanks for your time this morning. What is the program?

SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: G'day, Jeremy. It's good to be on the show. This is a $2 billion commitment from the Albanese Government to onshore aluminium production here in Australia. It's a production credit that will apply to buy volume, so a contribution from the Federal Government to support Australian aluminium production. It'll apply from 2028; it'll apply for facilities for 10 years or up to 2044 - whichever comes sooner. And what we're doing, what I announced yesterday at BSL in Gladstone, was that we are bringing forward and putting on the fast track the design process. So, it opened yesterday in Gladstone. It'll be finished in a couple of weeks, October 30. Because I want to make sure that while we've got this very significant subsidy for Australian manufacturing available, that we're giving the facilities the certainty that they need to have in order to make the investments that they have to make in their productive future and that we provide security and certainty for communities like Gladstone and Central Queensland.

JONES: 2 billion is a massive number to be hearing. What does that mean on the ground in Gladstone?

AYRES: Well, what it means is subject to the design right. We've got to get the design right. But what it means is that that facility can invest in its own maintenance processes and capital and workers and all of the industrial ecosystem around it, all of those facilities that rely upon BSL can invest with confidence because they know that that production credit is there ready to go, and that provides them the sort of security and certainty that they need. I was at the Gladstone Engineers Alliance yesterday. You know, hundreds of people who are leaders in engineering firms. All of them rely upon these big facilities for engineering work, for construction work, for civil work, for maintenance work. They're all making a great contribution in the Gladstone and Central Queensland industry, and they want to have that certainty and security as well.

JONES: Of course, and for Gladstone as well. We have seen the axing of some hydrogen projects in and around the region. Are you confident in the industry?

AYRES: I looked out at the crowd at the Gladstone Engineers Alliance at the Entertainment Centre there yesterday, and what I saw was Australians who are absolutely committed to engineering confidence about the future and industrial capacity that makes Central Queensland one of the most important industrial regions in the country, at the centre of the Albanese Government's Future Made in Australia agenda. 

We have the biggest pro-manufacturing policy platform of any government in Australian history. We're determined to support blue-collar work and to make sure, in Australia's national interest, that we're diversifying the Australian economy, lifting our industrial capability. And we're doing that because it delivers good jobs in the regions. But we're also doing it because it secures Australia's competitive advantage in the future. And it delivers us economic resilience in what are uncertain times. In a geopolitical and security sense, in an economic sense, there's no complacency from us. There's no complacency at all. We've got to fight for the future. We've got to back industry and that's what the Albanese Government's all about.

JONES: Well, Minister Tim Ayres, thanks for your time this morning.

AYRES: Thanks, Jeremy.